Caron Freeborn

Novelist

Caron Freeborn is a novelist and teacher who also writes occasional education journalism. Her first novel, Three Blind Mice (Abacus, 2001), was described in the Independent as ‘brilliantly written in the vernacular, this complex book explores family, status and love’. Her second, Prohibitions (Abacus, 2004), was called ‘an illuminating narrative on the extremes of human emotions’ in the Big Issue; her third novel is a re-working of a Greek tragedy. The eldest of her two children has Autism Spectrum Disorder and she deals with an adult who has this condition in her work. She is increasingly concerned to raise awareness of ASD, from involvement in the launch of Simon Baron-Cohen’s Transporters DVD in America to finding ways of incorporating discussions of theory of mind into her fiction and her teaching. Caron has taught English at Cambridge University for many years, specializing in the Tragedy Paper, and more recently has been teaching creative writing for the Open University. She also runs workshops with the poet Elizabeth Speller, and is involved with the Women’s Word Festival at Cambridge.